The Station Master of Winter's Court
by Belladonna Lee
Summary: Implied Draco/Harry. AU. Age difference. A winter fairy tale. Stranded at a lonely railway station in the midst of a winter wasteland, Harry meets a stranger whose skin is white as snow, whose hair is the palest of gold, and whose eyes reflect the cold, dead sky.
1. Part I: 1990

Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter and its characters are not mine.

A/N: This is written for the _newyearcntdown_ challenge on LJ. The prompts used in this part are _winter's chill_ and _mittens_. This piece is a bit rough around the edges.

 **The Station Master of Winter's Court**

 _Part I: 1990_

On the empty platform of a railway station located somewhere in the countryside, Harry shivered in his well-worn jacket and faded jeans. The station in question was little more than a roofless platform that just so happened to be built beside a railway track. Two old-fashioned lampposts stood at either end of the platform, and a wooden bench crouched at the centre of the station like a centre-piece on a dining table for giants. Beyond the station was an uninhabited field stretching on towards the horizon. Beneath the leaden sky, everything was covered in a blanket of snow.

There was no shelter for Harry to get away from the cold. There was no telephone for him to get in touch with his godfather and tell him that he was stranded in the middle of nowhere. There was no one else in this forsaken corner of the world: he was alone. Sitting on the bench with his battered trunk by his side, he heaved a sigh. He should have accepted Sirius' offer of picking him up at the Dursleys, an offer he had declined out of some stupid notion of asserting his self-sufficiency.

In his ten years of life, luck had never been on his side: the passing of his parents, the household where he was an unwanted burden, the feud between Sirius and the Dursleys over custody of him, his bully of a cousin who used to use him as a punching bag. It seemed his bad luck had followed him to this empty husk of a railway station.

He breathed on his chilled, numb fingers. The threadbare woollen gloves—hand-me-downs from his cousin—were not thick enough to keep the cold away. After stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jacket, he got up and paced about on the platform, restless and a little afraid.

Surely a train would arrive at some point, he reasoned as he retraced the tracks he had made in the snow over and over again. Neither the pacing nor his attempt at optimism could ease the knot in his stomach. As a feeling of helplessness washed over him, he bit his lip and kept his mind occupied by counting the steps. _One, two, three, four..._

Fifty-eight steps took him from one end of the platform to the other. Another fifty-eight steps took him back to the starting point. Not a sound could be heard but that of his trainers crunching the snow. Any sound would be better than the silence enveloping this winter wasteland.

A gust of wind assailed him head-on and blew back his hood. Keeping his head down, he turned around and pulled the hood back into place. When he looked up, a blot of black entered his line of sight. Taken aback, he stopped dead in his tracks and blinked.

The black blot in question was a man dressed in a long black coat, black trousers and black boots. In contrast to his attire, his skin was unusually pale, as though he were made of snow. He had silvery blond hair and a chiselled profile. Hands in his pockets and head tilted ever so slightly upwards, he was gazing at the clouds in their many shades of grey.

Was he waiting for a train as well, Harry wondered. He had not seen the man walk towards the station, let alone hear the man approach. Then again, perhaps he was too busy panicking over his predicament that he failed to take notice of his surroundings. On the one hand, it was a relief to encounter another human being; on the other hand, the man could very well be a serial killer.

Harry walked over to where he had left his trunk, putting just enough distance between him and the man. One could never be too careful around strangers. "Excuse me," he called out, and the man looked at him, slate grey eyes reflecting a cold, dead sky. "Hello. Could you tell me which station this is? I think I've lost my way."

"Where do you think this is?" The man had a low, pleasant baritone voice, but he looked bored, as if he had been asked the same question one too many times.

"In the middle of nowhere?" Harry hazarded a guess.

"Well, there you go," the man replied with a note of finality before returning to his sky gazing.

Awkward silence lengthened in the space between Harry and the man, but Harry was not deterred, not when desperation urged him on. Tightening the scarf around his neck, he spoke up once more. "Are you waiting for a train?"

The man's lips curved into a wry smile, and the frost in his gaze seemed to have thawed. For one precious moment, he did not seem so aloof anymore. "You could say that," he whispered, speaking more to himself than to Harry.

"When will your train arrive?" Harry asked in as casual a tone as he could manage, all the while trying not to look too eager or desperate for an answer.

" _A train_ will arrive when it is time to arrive. There is no need to be impatient about it. Whether you like it or not, it will be here sooner or later. Any more question?"

 _You like messing with people, don't you?_ Harry grumbled in his mind.

"It helps pass the time," the man drawled. The sardonic curve upon his lips transformed into a wicked grin. His cheeks burning in embarrassment, Harry realised to his dismay that he must have spoken his thought aloud. "As you can see," the man continued, "this is no King's Cross. We have to amuse ourselves in whatever way we can."

Biting back the retort that was on the verge of slipping out, Harry mumbled an apology and fell silent. The man reminded him of the Cheshire Cat in _Alice in Wonderland_ : cryptic and infuriating and unhelpful. As the cold air made him sneeze, he could at least be certain that he had not fallen asleep beside a rabbit hole somewhere—and he was no Alice in mad wonderland.

"Are you cold?"

The man's voice jolted Harry out of his musing. When he turned to the man, he found the man scrutinising him with narrowed eyes. Unable to hide his discomfort or his sniffling, Harry shuffled his feet; he could barely feel his toes. "A little." He did not sound convincing to his own ears.

Letting out a white breath, the man flicked his wrist as though counting the beat. Three beats later, a flash of crimson exploded out of the man's gloved hand and cascaded into a train of deep red velvet. When the man held up the train of velvet for inspection, Harry realised it was in fact a cloak with wine red fur trimming—the kind of cloak that would look right at home in period drama, at costume parties and on little children being dressed up by their parents.

"How did you do that?" Harry wondered aloud, not quite certain of what had just happened. The man seemed to be carrying no luggage with him, and he could not have hidden the cloak inside that slim black coat of his either.

"Magic." After placing the cloak on the bench, the man reached for the empty space above him, as though wanting to grab a cloud or two. By the time he lowered his arm, he was clutching a pair of fluffy white mittens. Without ceremony he dropped the mittens on top of the cloak. "You can have these."

His initial amazement dampened by wariness, Harry did not immediately reach for the mittens or the cloak. However well-meaning the man might appear to be, there were times when kindness came with a price tag, a price he might not be able to afford. "Thank you, but I'm fine."

The man must have sensed the edge behind Harry's words and the tension in Harry's bearing, for he heaved a misty sigh in exasperation. "In case you are wondering, no, I don't have any unsavoury designs on you."

"What about not-unsavoury designs?"

There was a hint of a smirk upon the man's lips, though Harry had no idea why the man found his question amusing. "You are too young for that," the man remarked in perfect nonchalance before pulling a cigarette from behind his ear. "I don't care if you take them or leave them be. I don't have any use for them anyway. They aren't my colour or my size."

The rebel in Harry wanted to decline the offer out of sheer stubbornness, but the cold wind blew past him and scattered what remained of his reluctance. Gingerly he picked up the cloak and threw it on. Reaching to his ankles, the cloak fit him well. Bemused, he took off his gloves and pulled on the mittens; they too were a good fit. After drawing the hood over his head, he stole a glance at the man, who was watching a wisp of smoke rising from the tip of the cigarette.

While the man was not looking, Harry buried his nose in the deep red velvet. The cloak smelled faintly of burnt wood, and a touch of warmth lingered as though someone else had just been wearing the cloak a moment ago. The scent stirred in him visions of a fireplace—not an electric imitation, but an actual wood-burning fireplace with a wooden mantelpiece (like the one at Sirius' house).

Whenever Harry stayed at Sirius' house for the winter holidays, he would sit in front of the crackling fire with a cup of hot chocolate that Remus had made for him. Sometimes, the three of them would play board-games, while other times Sirius and Remus would tell him funny anecdotes about his parents and their circle of friends—

Shaking himself out of his reverie of warm fire and hot chocolate, Harry sat down on the bench and pulled the cloak close around him. "So... are you a magician?"

"Something like that." The man sat down as well and crossed those long legs of his; he kept to his end of the bench while Harry kept to the other end. "Do you believe in magic?"

Staring at the burning cigarette between the man's fingers, Harry thought about how the cloak and the mittens had materialised out of thin air, and he thought about how the man had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. "Er, maybe?"

"I suppose you don't care for magic tricks then. Well, to each his own." With that the man took a drag of his cigarette and breathed out white smoke into the air. "Do you remember how you got here?"

Taken aback, Harry nonetheless cast his mind back to the trip itself: being dropped off at the station by a grumpy Uncle Vernon, boarding the train that Remus had sent him a ticket for, finding a seat in one of the empty compartments, dozing off to the rattling of the train, and—

Harry's mind drew a blank, and no matter how deep he dug into the well of his memory, he found only swirling darkness. Confusion ate away at his consciousness, and a lingering doubt began to form. A vague sense of panic ever so slowly constricted his throat: he could not remember ever getting off the train.

"Sorry, but I don't really remember," Harry replied, and he winced at the rasp in his voice. "I fell asleep on the train, and..." At a loss for words, he fell silent and stared at the hem of the cloak. Against the backdrop of the unsoiled snow, the velvet resembled a river of blood.

"Which station are you supposed to be heading to?"

"I have the directions here." After removing his mitten, Harry fumbled in his pocket and took out the slightly crumpled note that Remus had sent him with the ticket. He handed the note to the man, who took it without touching his hand.

Unfolding the note, the man scanned through Remus' neat handwriting and made a murmuring sound. "Shouldn't you be travelling with an adult?"

"They have work, and I don't want to bother them. I'm fine on my own." As soon as those words left Harry's mouth, he realised his mistake and felt a little foolish for spouting out such a pompous declaration considering his current predicament. "Or rather, I thought I would be fine travelling alone."

For once the man did not laugh at him; instead, he folded the note and gave it back to Harry. "It's all right to be lost once in a while. Being an adult isn't much of an accomplishment." With that he turned to his left and gazed at something in the distance. "The train is here."

"Huh?"

Stuffing the note in his pocket, Harry leant forward and looked to the left end of the platform. In a cloud of white smoke, a steam train was sailing ever closer towards the station without a sound. If Harry did not know any better, he would be inclined to think the train was gliding several inches above the snow-shrouded railway tracks. Then again, it had been a strange day, and he was sitting beside a man who seemed to defy the very rules of reality.

Before long, the train pulled into the station and came to a stop. A tall black man in a pitch black uniform stepped off the train, his cool dark eyes looking from Harry to Harry's trunk, and from Harry's trunk to the blond man, who gave him a casual salute in greeting. The conductor—or so Harry assumed—held the blond man in his gaze for several heartbeats, and without a word he strode forward and halted in front of Harry. Getting to his feet, Harry looked up out of reflex and met the conductor's gaze.

"I'll carry your trunk to an empty compartment," the conductor said in a dispassionate voice, his visage stoic as a monk of old. "The train will depart in two minutes." With one hand the conductor lifted Harry's trunk as though it weighed nothing, and after tipping his hat at the man, he returned to the train with Harry's trunk.

"There you are." The man uncrossed his legs and stood up in one smooth motion. "Have a safe trip."

The man's words sent a sharp pang to Harry's chest, though he was not sure why. Lifting his head, he tried to read the man's expression. Calm as a frozen lake, this riddle of a man could not be so easily deciphered—certainly not by a gullible ten-year-old boy. "Aren't you coming along?"

A wry smile appeared for a moment upon the man's lips. "This is not my train," he said, and his expression softened ever so slightly. "It will take you to your destination. And you can keep those." The man tilted his chin at the cloak enveloping Harry's body like a cocoon. "You'd better run along now, or the train will leave without you."

Flustered, Harry hurried towards the train and hopped aboard. Turning to the lone figure standing on the platform, he called out, "Thanks for the cloak and the mittens. I hope your train will arrive soon."

And there was that wry smile again, the meaning of which eluded Harry. In three strides the man came up to Harry, and with eyes as old as the world itself he contemplated Harry's face. "You'll be all right," the man whispered.

Transfixed by those eyes that seemed capable of glimpsing into his past, present and future, Harry heard himself say, "How do you know?"

"You are still alive."

Before Harry could reply, the man closed the train door and stepped back. As if heeding to the man's signal, the train began to move forward. His heart pounding in his chest, Harry rushed into the nearest compartment and looked out the window. On the lonely platform, the man—a black blot in a pure white world—waved his hand. Feeling a lump in his throat, Harry waved back with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, hoping the man would be able to see him.

All too soon the station fell away and vanished out of sight; even the speck of black that was the man's coat could not be seen anymore. Harry sat down by the window and looked around him; his trunk was tucked away in the corner of the compartment. Letting out a shaky breath, he settled down in the seat and stared at the mittens in his lap, white on red.

A wave of weariness washed unbidden over him. The inside of the compartment was warm, and the upholstered seat was strangely comfortable to sit in. His eyelids grew heavy, and his head began to droop. Yielding to the lure of sleep, he closed his eyes, sank further into the fold of the cloak, and fell into a dreamless slumber. As warm darkness enveloped him in a gentle embrace, he thought he could hear the man whispering to him, "Until next time."

* * *

 _To be continued..._


	2. Part II: 1995

Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter and its characters are not mine.

A/N: This is written for the _newyearcntdown_ challenge on LJ. The prompt used in this part is _winter fairy tale_.

 **The Station Master of Winter's Court**

 _Part II: 1995_

In the vast expanse filled with nothing but ice and snow, not a single living creature could be seen. Blue twilight painted the snow a lovely shade of cornflower blue, and the snow glittered like a sea of stardust. In the distance, a thicket of evergreen trees lurked like giants clad in white camouflage. At the outdoor railway station, the gas lamps at both ends of the platform were lit, their golden flame burning steadily behind the glass, and their lights casting faint halos upon the ground.

Propping one leg up on the bench, Harry hugged his knee and watched his breath escape into the blue hour sky. The cold air nipped at his nose, and a slight chill seeped through his trousers. The winter coat Sirius bought for him was warm enough to give him some comfort. Pulling his scarf over his mouth and nose, he rested his chin on his knee and waited for the train to arrive.

With his trunk by his side, he was struck by a sense of déjà vu. Nothing much had changed in this forlorn railway station at the edge of the world, and he doubted it would change at the end of time. Beneath the distant twilight and the intimate gaslight, the scenery spread out before his eyes was at once lonely and beautiful and surreal.

Five years ago, he stumbled into a fairy tale and met a man who claimed to be a magician. Like Cinderella's glass slipper, the blood red cloak and the fluffy white mittens he had stowed away were proof that the encounter was neither a dream nor an illusion conjured from the mind of a frightened child. Perhaps someday he would recount the story to his children and grandchildren, and they might or might not believe him. What he did not expect was to be stranded at this very station again.

"Back so soon?" came a low baritone drawl.

His heart skipped a beat, Harry lowered his leg and turned towards the sound. Standing several paces away from the bench was the man he had met five years ago. Dressed in black, the man was as Harry had remembered: the look of amusement upon a chiselled visage, the black coat complementing a tall frame, long legs wrapped in black trousers, and black leather boots stepping on trampled snow.

His pulse quickening in spite of himself, Harry pulled down his scarf and shifted his gaze ever so slightly to the left of the man's head. Silvery blond hair swayed ever so slightly in the wintry breeze, but the man did not seem to mind the wind or the cold. "I didn't think I would run into you at this station again," Harry said.

"I am what you might call a station master." There was a note of humour in the man's voice.

Harry blinked. The notion had not occurred to him before, though perhaps he should have thought of the possibility. "You aren't wearing a cap, and..." He cast a glance at the tailored coat—a study in elegance—and the stylish boots—made with real leather, he reckoned. "You don't look like a station master."

"And what do you presume a station master ought to look like?" the man asked, and Harry had no answer to give him. Unconcerned, the man continued. "No one pesters me about how I look or what I wear. People who end up here usually have other things to worry about."

"Oh. Right." Did travellers often become stranded at this station, Harry wondered as his gaze swept across the snowy field and the deep blue sky. It was also likely that the man was merely messing with his head. "I'm Harry, by the way."

"Nice to meet you, Harry-by-the-way," the man said in half-jest. "You can call me Draco."

"Like the constellation?"

"You could say that." Draco came over and sat down on the bench, his movement exuding the natural grace of someone comfortable in his own skin. A mixture of envy and admiration trickled into Harry's mind; he could never move with such easy confidence. "How's life?"

Scenes from the past flashed by inside Harry's head like images from a magic lantern: scolded for having messy hair, shunned for being an orphan and having a scar on his forehead, made fun of for wearing hand-me-downs that never fit, locked away in a dark cupboard for some presumed slight. That was all in the past. Now he had friends at the boarding school, and he had Sirius and Remus, who gave him a home, as well as anything else he needed and some more.

"I'm better now." Words tumbled out of Harry's mouth of their own accord, words he had wanted to say to this mysterious stranger for the longest time. "It's not always easy, but it's not all bad either. My friend at school invited me to stay at his house for a few days. It should be fun." _Besides, Bill will be there too,_ he added before he caught himself. "How are you?"

With a knowing look Draco made a humming sound and tilted his head to regard Harry, his blond strands falling over one keen grey eye. His cheeks coloured, Harry forced himself to meet Draco's gaze. Silly though it might sound, he thought for a moment that Draco could hear the words that were left unsaid—and what he had heard amused him.

At length, Draco looked away and let out a long breath. White steam flowed out of his lips and took on the form of a miniature dragon. As if following the guidance of the wind, the ghostly dragon sailed with the wintry breeze towards the darker end of the dusky sky. Harry did not gawk, but like a child seeing shiny baubles, he could not resist chasing the wisp of steam with his eyes until it vanished into the ether.

"I'm working," Draco said in a casual tone.

Remembering the thread of the conversation, Harry tore his gaze away from the sky to look at Draco, whose nonchalant expression revealed nothing of his thought. "Er, okay. Are you the only station master here?" Draco nodded. "Isn't it lonely being out here by yourself?"

A wry half-smile flitted onto Draco's shapely lips. "People come and go all the time," he said.

That was hardly an answer, but Harry let it go. The question was too personal, and it was rude of him to pry. Leaning back on the bench, he looked up at the twilit sky, wondering if it was dusk or dawn. He checked his wrist-watch: time was frozen at twenty-six minutes and thirteen seconds past six o'clock.

An unsettling feeling began to creep up on him like a tiny lizard crawling up his spine. When did he arrive at this station? When did he board a train? When did he leave his dormitory and head to the station? He could remember nothing at all. Unnerved, he went through his pocket and found a railway ticket, but the find did not put his mind at ease. There was an inexplicable gap in his memory. _Just like last time._

"Say, Draco, what is this place?" Harry asked, his voice sounding steady and calm, even though he was feeling anything but calm. "Is this wonderland? The land of the faeries? The railway station of Jack Frost?"

"It's Winter's Court, actually," Draco murmured. Those frozen grey eyes of his were fixed upon Harry's face, searching for what Harry could not even begin to tell. "Are you afraid?"

The frigid air burnt Harry's throat; a shudder coursed through his body; and a churning sensation persisted in his abdomen. He felt sick. For one disconcerting moment, he was once more the frightened ten-year-old boy who was putting on a brave front that fooled no one. "A little." His words came out in a cloud of white mist.

A low chuckle escaped Draco's lips, and the tension in the air ebbed away as if it were never there to begin with. "That's normal. Just think of everything here as a particularly vivid dream."

The cold snap passed on without a trace, and Harry could breathe easily again. Sending Draco a sidelong glance, he mumbled, "And you are supposed to be the man of my dream?"

The man in question smiled a playful smile at him, and begrudging though he might be, Harry had to admit it was a very attractive smile. "If you want me to be," Draco said mildly.

At once annoyed with Draco and with himself, Harry turned away from Draco and stared at the distant boundary where the fallen snow met the cornflower sky. Draco was lying about this place being a dream, Harry was sure of it, though for whose sake he had not the slightest idea.

Silence lengthened. When his agitation had subsided into a mere whisper, Harry stole a glance at Draco. That the man was good-looking he did not doubt, but something about Draco stirred in him a dull ache, an ache that had nothing to do with attraction or infatuation—nostalgia perhaps, or something else entirely.

Smoke and steam rolled into the station unbidden and cast a veil over the platform. Woken from his musing, Harry looked around to see what was going on. Like a silent ghost a steam train had glided into the station. A door slid open of its own accord, as if beckoning to Harry to climb aboard. It was the same train as the one from five years ago, though the conductor chose to make himself scarce this time.

"This is your train," Draco said.

Harry made a sound in acknowledgement, stood up, and hesitated. For all he knew, this could be the last time he would see Draco again. Shuffling his feet, he avoided Draco's knowing gaze. "I guess this is goodbye."

"Have fun at your friend's house. Also..." Draco got to his feet, withdrew his right hand from his pocket, and held out his fist to Harry. "Hold out your hand."

His curiosity perked, Harry held out his hand. Small blue flowers fell from Draco's gloved hand and into Harry's palm. Taken by surprise, Harry tried to catch them all. One of the flowers eluded his capture, fluttered to the ground, and melded with the snow, blue-tinted petals fading to white.

"Souvenir," Draco remarked as he met Harry's questioning look. A ghost of a smile appeared for a beat or two upon his lips. "I'm always here. Come back when you are ready."

Feeling a pang in his chest, Harry gazed at Draco, whose smile held too many hidden meanings, and whose eyes reflected nothing but the sky in their depths. It was impossible to tell if the man was teasing him again or being serious. Suspicious character notwithstanding, Harry could not help gravitating towards this self-proclaimed station master and magician.

After pocketing the flowers, Harry smiled a bashful smile at Draco. "All right. I'll see you later."

The wheels of his trunk were stuck in the snow, but Harry managed to pick up his trunk and carry it onto the train. Once Draco closed the door for him and moved away, the train began rolling forward in a slow crawl. Leaning against the window in one of the compartments, Harry waved at Draco, who waved back. As the train gathered speed, the station where Draco remained behind slipped out of sight, and the flicker of gaslight melted into the endless twilight.

Alone with only his thoughts to keep him company, Harry sat down and looked out at the world of blue beyond the wooden-framed window. Nothing could be heard save for the slight ringing in his ears. It was like being alone at the bottom of the sea. As a shadow of unease lingered in his mind, he reached into his pocket and took out one of the flowers Draco gave him. The man who called himself Draco was fickle as the wind, slippery as ice and inscrutable as the fog—Harry wondered if they would meet again.

Tires squeaked, and a horn blared like a siren. Looking away from the blue flower, Harry found himself beholding the slope of an empty street bathed in the orange glare of sodium-vapour streetlight. His mind barely registering what had happened, he surveyed his surroundings: the bus stop pole up ahead, the glass shelter shielding him from the elements, the bench he was sitting on, and the trunk by his side. He checked his wrist-watch: twenty-six minutes and fifty-two seconds past six o'clock and counting. He had returned to his world.

There was a touch of frost in the air, but it was nothing compared to Winter's Court. If fairy tales were real, perhaps this world that was his reality was nothing but a dream. He looked up at the dusky sky: the same shade of blue as the sky on the other side, and the same shade of blue as the flower in his hand. Smiling to himself, he put the blue flower in his pocket and waited for the bus to arrive.

* * *

 _To be continued..._


	3. Part III: 1997

Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter and its characters are not mine.

A/N: Happy Birthday, Draco. It's been a while.

 **The Station Master of Winter's Court**

 _Part III: 1997_

Snow fell like ashes from the smoke white sky and onto the pure white land. The distant horizon that divided heaven and earth was gone; it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began. Gaslights at both ends of the railway station were aglow, as if serving as signposts for weary travellers who had lost their way. Obscured by a layer of snow, the edge of the platform seemed to melt with the snow white ground below. Not a shadow was cast in this monochrome world.

With a hood over his head, Harry brushed away the snow on his black coat and his rucksack. The wind howled. A sprinkle of ice stung Harry's face; cold wind chilled his legs; more white flakes landed on his coat and his rucksack. He shuddered and pulled the hood lower over his brow. As he turned away from the gust, his gaze fell upon the wooden bench that was shrouded in white like a cake dusted with icing sugar.

After brushing some of the snow off the bench, he set down his rucksack. Inside the rucksack were Christmas presents he bought for Ron, Hermione, Sirius and Remus, along with the CD Dean asked him to buy and a box of chocolate truffles he planned on sharing with the others. Had he known that he would be whisked away to the railway station in the middle of nowhere, he would have bought something for a certain station master.

 _"Come back when you are ready."_

Draco's parting remark echoed in the depths of Harry's psyche, words that in hindsight seemed to hint at meanings beyond a mere tease. However little he knew about Draco, he wanted to believe that the lone black figure who gave him flowers and waved goodbye at him on the empty platform would do him no harm.

Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Harry took a deep breath. "Hello?" He spoke to the falling snow, to the wintry air, to the barren land, to the overcast sky and to the railway station. "Draco? Are you there?"

"I'm not some familiar you can summon whenever you please," a voice remarked in a sardonic tone from somewhere off to the side.

Unable to help but smile, Harry relaxed ever so slightly and turned to the bench—which was now cleared of snow—and to the figure sitting on it. "But you are here now," Harry said before smiling at Draco, who wore his customary black clothes and the slightest of a frown upon his face. "Does it snow here often?"

Those slate grey eyes of Draco's were fixed upon Harry: an intense gaze that sent a shiver down Harry's spine and stirred up butterflies in his stomach. Suppressing the urge to fidget or avert his gaze, Harry held his breath. Several beats later, Draco heaved a white sigh and looked away.

"It snows whenever it feels like snowing," Draco said absently.

Harry was not sure if by _it_ Draco meant the sky or the land or the snow itself. As curiosity got the better of him, he sat down on the bench and looked at his trainers, which had sunk an inch or so into the snow. "Does the snow ever melt in this place? Or do you simply wish the snow away and it would sort itself out?"

"In a manner of speaking."

With a gloved hand Draco pulled a cigarette out of thin air and held it to his lips. When he drew in a breath, the tip of the cigarette lit up with an orange spark. Harry could not resist letting his gaze linger over the hand sheathed in black leather, the cigarette held between long, slender fingers, and shapely lips parted ever so slightly to let out a wisp of smoke or an inaudible sigh.

"How's life?" A breath of smoke accompanied Draco's words.

Woken from his reverie, Harry blushed and turned towards the everlasting snowscape. The snow did not seem so cruel anymore, the cold did not feel so biting anymore, and the wind did not sound so desperate anymore. Sitting beside Draco in the desolate railway station, he could almost believe his worldly concerns were little more than dreams from another lifetime.

He thought about the burden of school work, the imminent arrival of graduation, the uncertainty of his future, and the advices from his elders and teachers. Pick a career and persevere, McGonagall had said. Do something you enjoy doing, Sirius had suggested. Explore your options and try different things, Remus had advised. And he thought about messy feelings and adolescent impulses and closeted secrets.

"It's been confusing," Harry heard himself say. "I'm graduating next year. There isn't anything in particular I want to do or I'm good at. My plan is to get a job and go from there. Earn my living and be independent. Repay Sirius and Remus for everything they have done for me." He let out a sigh. "I'm not sure I know what I'm doing."

"Lost as usual, I see," Draco remarked, but there was no malice in his voice. "As long as you keep walking, you'll eventually reach somewhere—wherever that is." As if drawing a sword from an invisible sheath, he drew from his side something long, thin and white: an umbrella. Without ceremony he offered the handle to Harry. "Here."

Taken aback, Harry looked from the umbrella to Draco's face; he doubted he would ever get used to Draco's spontaneity. "Er, thanks." After accepting the umbrella, he propped it open, and with a rustle liken to the spreading of wings, translucent white fabric stretched tautly over silver ribs. "Do you want to get under here?" he asked in what he hoped was a casual tone.

Veiled eyes gave Harry a shrewd look, and a ghost of a smirk flitted onto bloodless lips. "Under you, I presume?" Draco murmured. "Why, I didn't think you would be so bold."

Knowing Draco was messing with his head, Harry nonetheless felt his heart skip a beat. Certain fantasies he had entertained surfaced to the forefront of his mind, fantasies involving a certain station master. "You'll be surprised." And Harry left it at that.

"I look forward to whatever surprises you have in store for me." With that Draco turned away and surveyed the sky. The teasing earlier could have been a lie. "You can have the umbrella. The snow doesn't bother me."

Feeling a little foolish, Harry held the umbrella over himself, took off his hood, and ran his hand a few times over his unruly hair. At length, he contemplated the man sitting at the other end of the bench, close enough for conversation but never quite within reach: a mirage that had a penchant for giving him what he needed in his vulnerable moments, be it advice or solace or companionship or a warm cloak.

 _Magic_ , Draco had said to him once upon a wintertime.

After seven years of wondering and reminiscing and puzzling over a riddle he had yet to solve, perhaps he could at last bring himself to believe in magic—or so Harry would like to think.

As a tangle of emotions took hold of Harry, he gripped the wooden handle of the umbrella and looked towards the endless wasteland. "Would you like some chocolates?"

"As much as I appreciate the offer, I cannot eat chocolates."

"Oh." Deflated, Harry slouched and fell silent. White flakes stood out like scars upon his black coat, and without a second thought he brushed them away. "How are you?"

"Working as usual."

Harry cast a sidelong glance at Draco. "You don't like talking about yourself, do you?"

The quirk of a smile upon Draco's lips seemed to hint at secrets Harry was not privy to. "There isn't much to talk about," Draco said. "Good stories come from travellers, not station masters."

"I'm sure station masters have interesting stories to tell too—if they choose to tell them." Harry pointed out while digging his heels in the trodden snow. "Maybe there is someone who looks forward to hearing your stories." He paused. "I'd like to hear your stories."

"Even if the only stories I know are other people's stories?" Draco's voice flowed into Harry's ear like whispers of the wind, ephemeral and remote. Not bothering to wait for a reply, Draco continued. "If you are going on a trip, do you prefer to walk, take a train, sail with the current, or fly and fall on a pair of borrowed wings?"

Harry had an inkling Draco was talking about more than just methods of travel. Tilting his head towards the sky, he thought about the story of Icarus and his melted wings. "I don't know about falling, but I would like to try flying just once and see a different view of the world."

"And then you will settle down to life on land." Draco finished Harry's train of thought for him before smoking some more. Coming from Draco's mouth, those words sounded almost like a prophecy. "And perhaps late at night, you will dream of the sky."

A whiff of smoke and steam dulled the edge of reality, and for one unsettling moment Draco was little more than a shadow in the fog. When Harry blinked, however, the veil was lifted, and the man sitting beside him was flesh and blood once more—or at least there was a semblance of flesh and blood. He had never poked Draco to confirm if the man was corporeal or not beneath that black coat of his. Perhaps what he saw right now was not Draco's true form. _Maybe he's really a dragon disguised as a human._

"Would you like me to sprout wings and breathe fire like one of those circus acts?"

"Huh? No, I didn't mean to offend you. I was just wondering, that's all." When Harry stole a glance at Draco, he saw only amusement in the man's countenance. "You can read my thought, can't you?" he mumbled, all the while feeling a shade too warm underneath the hood and the knitted scarf.

"You weren't exactly whispering," Draco said in dismissal.

Stricken with a spell of confusion, Harry frowned; he was certain he had not said his thought out loud. "Right..." He trailed off. "So tell me, are you a dragon?"

"I am what you believe I am." However cryptic the answer might appear at a glance, the nuance behind the statement was not lost on Harry.

A light breeze brought along a dusting of snow and a faint waft of smoke. Inhaling deeply, Harry inclined his head and watched fallen snow play shadows upon the white canopy of the umbrella. The sight reminded him of the white dome of a planetarium, and he recalled a certain scene that was tainted with a bittersweet tone—of a starlit sky in the enclosed darkness of a makeshift planetarium, of sweaty palms and stolen kisses and sultry breath.

"I went out with someone for a while." Words tumbled out of Harry's mouth of their own accord. "He likes astronomy. Thanks to him, I'd learnt a lot about stars and constellations." _And he reminded me of you_. He lingered on the thought for a heartbeat and let it go. "I liked him, but it didn't work out. I couldn't be the Harry he wanted me to be, and he isn't the kind of person I thought, no, _wished_ he was.

"He once asked me this. When I was a child, what did I want to be when I grow up? I didn't want to be anything in particular. I just wanted to grow up. Now that I'm almost there, it doesn't feel much." Hugging his legs, Harry smiled a self-deprecating smile and changed the subject. "Have you ever gone out with anyone?"

"I'm afraid it is not my area of expertise." Draco waved his cigarette around as though chasing away some imaginary insect. A cord of smoke hovered in the air for a beat or two before knotting itself into the shape of a bird, and the spectral bird flew away into the drifting snow. "People don't come here looking for a romantic partner."

A feeling of déjà vu shadowed Harry's train of thought, and a vague notion danced at the periphery of consciousness. As he studied Draco's profile, something more profound than mere curiosity settled itself in his heart. "And you can't leave this place."

Those cool grey eyes of Draco's narrowed ever so slightly, and the curve of his lips became ever so wry. "There is indeed a brain hiding underneath that messy hair of yours, I see," Draco whispered while snuffing out his cigarette with his fingers. "I have a job to do after all. Winter's Court needs its station master."

"Are you fine with it?"

Without a word Draco tucked the cigarette behind his ear. By the time he lowered his hand, the cigarette was nowhere to be found, as if it had dissolved into the air it came from.

"Are you fine with being who you are?" Draco drawled, his expression all but unreadable. When Harry could not answer, he let out a chuckle or two, and a vague half-smile appeared for a moment upon his pale face. "If I ask you to stay, what would you do?"

Harry's heart skip a beat, a skip that turned into a pang in the next heartbeat. The winter chill and the drifting snow fell away from his consciousness like a half-forgotten dream. As he stared at Draco's visage, tales of mortals being spirited away by the supernatural or the divine crossed his mind. He had no idea what kind of being or creature Draco was, nor did he know what kind of intention Draco might have towards him. And yet...

"Are you going to keep me here?" Harry said with a calmness that surprised himself.

Ancient eyes held Harry in their gaze for a lifetime, and a single word fell like a snowflake in the space between the boy on the cusp of adulthood and the man who might not be human. "No." And with that reality reasserted itself once more.

Looking down at his lap, Harry spoke in a quiet voice. "I can't stay. There are many things I have to do in my world." The only response from Draco was a softly spoken _I see._ "If you had asked me seven years ago—" He stopped himself in time; there was no need to continue further. "I'm glad you didn't ask back then."

"Yes, and you've turned out all right." Harry could hear the smile in Draco's voice, a hint of something genuine and real beneath a veil of nonchalance. "You should run along."

When Harry lifted his head, he was not surprised to find a steam train exhaling smoke and steam by the platform. As the impending departure coloured his thought with melancholy, he let out a breath, stood up and reached for his rucksack.

Draco got up as well, and in half-jest he said, "Let's take a walk. Shall we?"

Five steps brought Harry and Draco to the edge of the platform and to the door that stood open like a gaping mouth. Once Harry shook off the snow on the umbrella and drew it close, he turned to the station master of Winter's Court. It was like a replay of their previous partings, except he no longer needed to tilt his head upwards in order to meet Draco's gaze.

"I'd better return this." Harry held out the umbrella to Draco, who kept his hands in the pockets of his coat and made no move to take the umbrella.

"Take it with you. You never know when you might need to use it."

However small a gesture it might appear to Draco, Harry could not help feeling a little happy and perhaps a little spoiled. He lowered the umbrella and held it by its curved handle, which fit strangely well in his gloved hand. "Thanks. But I might expect more presents from you when we meet again," he joked while trying to ignore the nagging voice in his head. _If we meet again..._

Draco breathed out a sigh. When he spoke, he sounded more distracted than annoyed. "I'll have you know that unlike Father Christmas, I do not take requests."

"I know." As his downcast eyes fell upon Draco's bare throat, an idea occurred to Harry. After hooking the umbrella onto one of the straps on his rucksack, he unwrapped the forest green scarf around his neck and offered it to Draco. "I would like you to have this."

There was a flicker in Draco's slate grey eyes, though it might have been a trick of the light and nothing more. "I don't suppose you knitted it yourself?" Draco queried in dry humour before taking the scarf from Harry.

"I'm afraid it is not my area of expertise." Harry repeated Draco's words from before.

A vague humming sound escaped Draco's throat, and with an abstracted look he contemplated the scarf in his hand. A beat or two later, he took a step forward, threw the scarf around Harry, and wound it around Harry's neck once more. Harry forgot to breathe. In his state of stupor, the only sensation he could feel was the woollen scarf shifting ever so slightly around his neck like a caressing hand.

"I can see why someone chose this particular shade of green for you," Draco murmured as he stepped back and gave Harry a long look. In the midst of falling snow, the wry half-smile upon his lips seemed almost unreal. "It looks better on you. Go on. The train waits for no one."

Jolted out of his daze, Harry hastened aboard the train and looked back at Draco, who was merely three steps away but already seemed as distant as a memory. "I'll see you later," Harry shouted. Instead of replying in words, Draco gave him a wave in farewell and closed the door.

With barely a lurch the train began to move, and Draco's figure soon vanished from the window. A white expanse filled Harry's vision, a vast, empty space not unlike the hollowness that accompanied a parting. Setting down his rucksack and the umbrella, Harry sat down on the floor, his back against the panelled wall, his head oddly light and his mind oddly empty. He looked up at the unlit gas lamp affixed to the opposite wall, its glass walls holding nothing within.

It was madness, this infatuation of his, and he would not have it any other way. There were still questions he wanted to ask, words he wanted to say. For now, however, he would put them inside a box, pick up the threads of his life on the other side, and wait for the time when he would meet Draco again. Resting the umbrella on his lap, he bowed his head and closed his eyes.

Hurried footsteps came and went, thin ice creaked and cracked, and the pattering of rain washed everything away. Icy rain landed upon Harry's head and made him shudder. Woken from the other reality of snow and smoke and shadow, he raised his head and gazed upon a steep slope of frost-rimed grass, which led downwards to a frozen lake. It took a few seconds for his muddled mind to recognise the place: the lake near his boarding school.

As freezing rain continued to fall upon his head and shoulders, Harry opened the umbrella and held it over himself. "You ought to be a weatherman," he mumbled to no one in particular.

Sitting on the worn wooden steps, he hugged his rucksack to his chest and took in the forlorn scenery in a daze. There was no one about, no animal in sight, no sound of traffic and no sound of life. Beneath the lead grey sky, he was alone; he did not know why he was here. Something slipped out of his mind and was swiftly forgotten. At length, he gave up, got to his feet, shouldered his rucksack, and carefully made his way up the slippery steps and back to the main road.

* * *

In the stillness of Winter's Court, Draco sat down on the bench, crossed his legs, and beheld the slate grey sky. What he had seen beyond the cover of clouds only he himself could tell, and he was not about to divulge to anyone about it. Snowflakes fluttered ever downwards, but they left not a trace behind upon Draco's pitch black coat and pitch black scarf.

A second silhouette emerged onto the platform and sauntered towards Draco, who looked up at the figure and raised his hand in greeting. "Blaise," Draco said, his casualness bespoke of familiarity. "Let's take a break."

After making a noncommittal sound, the driver-conductor in his pitch black uniform dropped down onto the bench and stared at Draco's scarf for a beat or two. "What's with the scarf?" he asked.

"A change in pace."

From the air Draco pulled out two steaming cups—black coffee for Blaise and tea for himself—and a plate of biscuits, and one by one he set them down on the bench. Meanwhile, Blaise reached behind him and took out a paper box, within which were four slices of quiche with different fillings. For some time Draco and Blaise ate and drank in companionable silence.

Once Blaise finished his last slice of quiche, he drank a mouthful from his cup and let out a sigh in satisfaction. With nothing better to do he leant back on his hands and focused on a point in the distance until he saw a shadow of remote mountains. "Sending the boy back wasn't one of your brightest ideas."

"No? He is the protagonist of his story, and he's spirited," Draco remarked wryly, but there was an undercurrent in his voice, a hint of some other truth lurking in the dark. "His story ought to entertain me for a while."

Not at all convinced of Draco's wayward display, Blaise heaved a sigh in resignation. "We've been down this path before. He's been here too many times, he knows more than is good for him, and sooner or later he'll be drawn back here again. What are you going to do then?"

Holding his cup between his gloved hands, Draco watched a snowflake fall into the cup and melt into nothing. A golden sunset glared at him from the confines of the cup like an eye. "I will do what I'd always done," murmured the lord of Winter's Court. "I will perform my duty."

With that Draco finished his tea, put down his cup, and got to his feet. "All right, time to get back to work."

Blaise too drained his cup, set it down on the bench, and stood up. In the next beat, the platform was deserted, as if the two black silhouettes had been painted over in white. The empty cups, the empty plate and the empty paper box were gone: only a pile of snow remained on the bench.

* * *

 _To be continued..._


End file.
